Live music from Charlie Hustle & the Grifters and Patrick Varine, cultural criticism, general foolishness and whatever other madness starts bouncin' around on our bent-antenna radar.

Friday, December 11, 2009

Fisher Price: My First DJ Mix

"He'll tweak ya' ass across the crossfade..." - Beastie Boys

So I highly recommend this Hercules DJ Console RMX. Just like Garageband fulfilled my decade-long dream of creating beats, this digital console is fulfilling my other lifelong dream of being able to mix and blend it.

I realize that, strictly speaking, as a relative hip-hop purist, I should hate this machine and call it a monstrosity. You're supposed to DJ on two Technics 1200s. But what can I say? It's way too late for me to start a vinyl collection. And I'm not out to win the next DMC Championship. I'm not going to be an Invisibl Skratch Pikl.

But for what I want to do - be able to create, blend and mix banging mixes of hip-hop, dancehall, reggae, etc. - this console is perfect. My only real complaint is that the "scratch" option leaves a bit to be desired. Unlike a regular 45, where you scratch a record and stop it with your hand, the RMX console doesn't stop when you do; it just continues the record immediately after the scratch. For someone like me who doesn't have real crossfader dexterity yet for that type of thing, it's kind of annoying.

But again, I'm not looking to be a show DJ; I'm trying to create a danceable mix that I'd actually like to hear, as opposed to a bunch of Top 40 rap that just fades one track into another.

I have been able to achieve some minor scratch-based mixing. For example, I can create a continuous juggle of the Guru sample in Ghettosocks' "Pink Lemonade," and you can make a nice little break out of Cyne's "Plight About Now" and Steve Spacek's "Dollar," which both use the same sample. (And you could blend in the only Jeezy song I enjoy as well, "Circulate")

Basically, what I'm saying is that my already-limited social life is now over, thanks to this mixer, unless I can get some gigs DJing in the area. Here's hoping...